GOP Infighting: “Don’t Nominate Dogs”

As the Republican Party continues to examine where it lost its momentum during the previous election cycle, finger-pointing is rampant. Establishment GOP players blame the Tea Party, the Tea Party blames the establishment.

But one conservative pundit has boiled the whole fiasco down to one simple rule: Make sure your candidates aren’t jerks.

Friday, for instance, conservative columnist Michael Barone told an audience at Hillsdale College’s center in Washington that the tea party, while bringing some talented politicians to the fore, also brought some “wackos and weirdos and witches.”

In a video of his comments, posted on the Daily Caller website, he singled out the GOP’s losing Senate candidates in Missouri and Indiana — Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock — who he said committed “unforced errors” with their remarks against abortion cases of rape. “Don’t nominate dogs, OK?,” he said.